Glasgow Worldcon 2024 viewing list

[vivdunstan]

I've just finished my marathon viewing of a large bunch of videos on catchup from the Glasgow Worldcon this summer. Watching on catchup I missed out the chance to take part in the live Q&As. And I also found the user interface rather cumbersome, that I had to watch on my laptop, which limited how frequently I could do so. But I still managed to get through quite a large number of talks.

Here are the events I watched, each one about an hour long, typically with 45 main minutes of discussion, followed by 15 minutes of audience Q&A:

• AI and Work - Do Androids Dream of Taking Your Job?
• ENIAC and the Post-War Dawn of the Computer age
• The Horror Out Of Space
• *Scot-ish: The Influence of Scotland on Fantasy Worldbuilding
• It's Life, Jim, but Not as We Know It
• *Iain Banks: Between Genre and the Mainstream
• All the Shakespeare: the Bard's Influence on SFF
• The Untold History of Worldcons
• Inadvisable Rocket Science
• A Fireside Chat with Samantha Béart
• Guest of Honour Interview: Ken MacLeod
• *The Many Legs of SF: Creepy Crawlies in Space
• 50 Years of TTRPGs
• Comics Can Save Your Life
• Faeries in Fantasy Literature

I've marked out above those with asterisks that I especially enjoyed. To pull those out specifically these were:

• Scot-ish: The Influence of Scotland on Fantasy Worldbuilding
• Iain Banks: Between Genre and the Mainstream
• The Many Legs of SF: Creepy Crawlies in Space

The first two of these had obvious Scottish connections, which I unsurprisingly appreciated. But I also found them particularly rewarding in other respects. But I enjoyed something in everything I watched, not just these particular highlight talks.

Martin and I had originally hoped to be at the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon in person. We had low cost attending memberships in place. But things didn't work out that way. However I was able to watch on catchup, and have very much enjoyed that. I was also active in the Discord during the convention, and treated myself to some purchases inspired by the Dealers' Hall.

Comments

[greenwoodside]

The 'influence of Scotland' one sounds marvellous. What was its general argument?

Please feel free to ignore the below! I'm just musing out loud.

One of the other talks you mention is on Shakespeare, and I guess Macbeth is one point of intersection there with its Scottish setting *and* witches.

Plus there are the border ballads, thinking especially of Tam Lin. (Though of the two fantasy books that were definitely written in response to it, one author was American -- Pamela Dean -- and the other, Diana Wynne Jones, was English).

Classic/trope-setting fantasy -- Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. To my shame, I've never read it. I was a bit surprised just now to see that it's set in London. In the extra-fictional version that lived inside my head, it was Edinburgh.

Tragically, I don't think there's a sub-genre of Edinburgh Urban Fantasy. I would be there for it.

Thinking of mainstream modern fantasy, then I guess the Wall from the A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones series is one inheritance. At least when I read the series, my thought was of Hadrian's Wall. Perhaps wrongly -- I guess George Martin could have been thinking of the Great Wall of China.